Hong-kung walks over to Arashi’s seat with heavy, aggressive steps.
He stops directly in front of the row, crossing his arms and glaring down at the boy who had just broken the system’s evaluation metric.
“Why are you so quiet, Tanaka?” Hong-kung demands, his voice echoing loudly over the low murmur of the crowd.
“You think that weird infinity symbol on the screen makes you better than the rest of us? Let me tell you something right now. I am not afraid of you. Not even a little bit.”
Arashi does not look up to meet his gaze.
He remains perfectly still, his arms folded neatly across his chest, his pale eyes fixed on the empty space directly ahead of him.
His expression is a flawless, unmoving mask of absolute apathy.
“If you truly harbored no fear toward me, Hong-kung, why do you feel the consistent psychological compulsion to tell me?” Arashi asks.
His voice is completely flat, monotone, and entirely mechanical, lacking even a trace of human irritation or pride.
“Human psychology dictates that when an individual constantly brings up a specific threat to an opponent, it has already become their primary internal subject matter. You are not trying to convince me of your bravery. You are desperately trying to convince yourself.”
Hong-kung flinches, his teeth clenching as his face turns a dark shade of red.
He lets out a low, animalistic growl from the back of his throat.
“You think you can just analyze me like a piece of data, you trash?”
“Your immediate descent into anger simply validates my hypothesis,” Arashi responds smoothly, his pitch never rising or falling by a single decibel.
“Please return to your assigned section. You are currently wasting your energy on an inefficient display of bravado.”
Hong-kung huffs violently, spinning around on his heel and stomping away down the aisle.
As he heads back toward his seat, a sharp, whispered voice from the front row cuts through his frustration.
A girl with short green hair and calculating eyes steps slightly into his path.
“You and I have to talk,” the green-haired girl says, her voice low and sharp.
“Don’t let your fragile ego blind you to what Tanaka actually represents in this facility. He is dangerous.”
“Mind your own business, greenie,” Hong-kung snaps back, brushing past her without breaking his stride.
Back in the row, Min-sun continues to stare at Arashi.
She sits in absolute silence, her mind racing as she imagines the intense, hidden amount of power he might be actively keeping away from the faculty’s sensors.
She begins contemplating whether or not she could truly trust him, weighing the pros and cons of trying to make him her permanent ally in this cruel game of survival.
Her deep thoughts are cut short by a harsh, electronic chime from the PA system.
The massive central monitor hums back to life, and a single line of bright text flashes across the display.
CANDIDATE 319: MIN-SUN JOO
Min-sun feels her entire body collapse on the inside the exact moment her name registers.
Her jaw drops open in sheer horror.
She begins to shake vigorously, her knees knocking together as all the air is violently sucked from her lungs.
“No… no, it’s my turn already? I can’t do this. I saw what happened to Hina.”
Arashi turns his head slightly, his dull, unbothered eyes evaluating her trembling frame.
He reaches out, placing a perfectly steady, cold hand flat onto her shoulder.
“It is your turn, Min-sun San. Stand up. Your internal hesitation will not alter the sequence of the queue. It only prolongs the inevitable data collection.”
“Arashi, I can’t move,” she whispers frantically, tears pricking the corners of her eyes.
“My legs feel like lead.”
“The automatic spotlight is already tracking your coordinates,” Arashi states mechanically, his voice entirely devoid of sympathy as he removes his hand from her shoulder.
“Remaining seated will only force the armored orderlies to deploy physical enforcement. That would result in a severe drain on your stamina before the neural link even establishes itself. Walk.”
Min-sun swallows the lump of terror in her throat.
The moment her boots touch the aisle floor, a brilliant, blinding spotlight snaps onto her, illuminating her every movement.
As she begins her slow walk towards the vast stage, the surrounding crowd of candidates erupts into a flurry of hushed, overlapping whispers.
“Hey, look at her,” a boy murmurs to his friend.
“Is she the one who passed the Spiritual Assimilation test at red-level on the first day.?”
“Yeah, that’s her,” a girl answers from three rows down.
“She must be incredibly powerful if she managed to survive that baseline.”
“Don’t be stupid,” a candidate in a torn uniform scoffs loudly.
“Don’t you know who she is? She’s the niece of Seul-gi Joo. The infamous mafia boss lady. She’s probably been trained to handle psychological torture since she was a child.”
“She doesn’t really look that powerful to me,” another voice chip in from the dark.
“Look at her arms. She’s shaking like a leaf.”
“It was probably just beginner’s luck,” a cruel voice laughs from the back.
“I bet twenty points she won’t last a single second against the main monitor’s extraction.”
Their mocking words make her tremble all the more, each syllable hammering into her fading confidence.
Each step down the long central aisle feels significantly larger and heavier than the last.
She feels incredibly dizzy, the bright lights overhead spinning into blurred streaks of white.
As she mounts the concrete steps of the main stage, her eyes meet the thousands of eyes staring back at her from the stadium seats.
Some are filled with pure hatred, some are wide with intense expectation, and some are just casually watching the platform for a good, violent show.
She turns around and stares directly at the heavy metallic chair sitting in the center of the spotlight.
Her heart pumps hard against her ribs, sounding like a bass drum inside her ears.
She takes a deep breath, approaches the rig, and takes a seat.
The moment her back presses against the frame, the automated mechanisms engage with a sharp, heavy clank.
Thick iron straps slide over her hands and legs, locking her securely to the chair.
At that exact moment, the absolute reality of her situation strikes her with the force of a physical blow.
She already knew what her biggest fear was.
It wasn’t the academy, it wasn’t Principal Kenjiro, and it wasn’t the threat of execution.
It was the thought of losing her little sister, Promise.
“I can’t do this,” Min-sun whispers to herself, her eyes widening as she stares up at the ceiling.
“I know how this machine works now. I watched Hina. I watched her look at a simulation of the people she loved dying in the dark.”
She knew with absolute certainty that she could never overcome that fear by just sitting quietly in that chair and watching digital simulations of her worst nightmares.
She knew that if the monitor forced her to watch a hyper-realistic simulation of seeing her little sister die, she wouldn’t be able to take the psychological feedback.
She would break from the inside out.
She might as well die right here.
“I won’t let them inside my head,” she growls, her terror suddenly morphing into a desperate, frantic defiance.
“I won’t look at it!”
From the dark ceiling above, the sleek, massive helmet begins its smooth, mechanical descent to land on her head.
Before the visor can cover her eyes, Min-sun violently throws her weight to the left.
She rocks the heavy chair from side to side, her muscles straining against the thick iron straps.
Thud.
Thud. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
The metal base of the chair screeches against the concrete stage floor.
Throughout the auditorium, the thousands of watching candidates grow instantly confused at what she is doing.
Whispers turn into loud shouting as people lean forward in their seats.
Inside the high-tech control room, the confusion is identical.
Principal Kenjiro steps closer to the glass window, his brow furrowing deeply.
“What is the meaning of this? Why is she moving?”
“Doctor, she’s resisting the physical alignment!” a technician shouts, his fingers flying across a blinking red keyboard.
“The helmet cannot achieve proper synchronization with her neural pathways!”
Dr. Akane watches the erratic bio-readings spike before the link is even active.
“She is actively trying to disrupt the rig parameters. Orderlies, secure the platform immediately!”
Down on the stage, Min-sun ignores the flashing warning lights.
She throws her entire torso to the right with a desperate, screaming yell.
“Get this off me! I refuse! I’m not taking your test!”
With one final, violent surge of momentum, the heavy metallic chair loses its balance.
It tips over completely, crashing loudly onto its side against the hard concrete stage.
The impact rattles through the audio system, sending a dull boom through the arena.
Min-sun’s left shoulder smashes against the floor, but she doesn’t stop.
Still tightly strapped and bound to the fallen chair, she twists her torso like a snail, desperately trying to push herself and the heavy metal rig towards the side exit of the stage.
Her boots scrape wildly against the floor as she drags her own weight.
“I have to get out… I won’t let you touch my mind!”
“Stop her!” a technician screams as three staff members burst out from the side wings of the stage.
“She’s going to damage the primary sensory conduits!”
The technicians reach her just in time, grabbing the edges of the fallen chair to halt her agonizingly slow progress.
They hoist the heavy metal structure back upright, trying their best to force her back into the center of the spotlight alignment.
Even back in the proper position, Min-sun fights hard with every single ounce of strength left in her body.
She thrashes against the iron straps, kicking her legs and throwing her head forward to bite at anyone who gets close.
“Let go of me! Don’t touch me! I refuse to let you into my head! I refuse!”
A senior technician steps forward from the back of the platform, drawing a heavy, metallic security implement from his utility belt.
The tip of the device crackles with a bright, violent blue electricity.
“Candidate 319 is completely uncooperative. Authorized override for immediate compliance.”
“Deploy the taser,” Dr. Akane orders sharply through the stage intercom system.
“We cannot risk a physical rupture of the core equipment before the next phase.”
The technician drives the prongs of the implement directly against Min-sun’s exposed shoulder.
Zap!
A blinding torrent of blue electricity rips through her entire nervous system.
Min-sun’s body convulses violently against the iron straps, her eyes rolling back into her head as a choked scream is cut short in her throat.
“Prim…Prim—”
The intense electrical shock overpowers her consciousness instantly.
Her muscles go completely slack, her head dropping heavily against her chest as her vision fractures into jagged pieces of white light.
Within a fraction of a second, the light vanishes, and everything goes totally black.